Loom 5-minute limit
Loom's 5-minute limit is the silent cap on your tutorials.
Everything Loom charges for — free.
You sit down to record a 12-minute demo of the new feature. The setup takes 90 seconds, the actual demo takes 8, the Q&A you walk through takes 2.5, and you close with a 30-second wrap-up. Total: 12 minutes. Loom\'s free Starter plan stops you at 5:00. You finish mid-sentence, the recording uploads as a truncated file, and the viewer you sent it to got 41% of the walkthrough.
The 5-minute cap is the single most-mentioned pain point in Loom\'s free tier. It\'s also the cap Pullsy removed: unlimited length, free, with auto-chapters and Ask-this-video so a long video is searchable and answerable rather than a wall to scrub through.
The exact moments a 5-minute cap kills you.
Most articles about the Loom 5-minute limit are abstract. Here are four concrete scenes where the cap actually changes the outcome.
A 3-step deploy that takes 7 minutes no matter how fast you go
You're recording the deploy walkthrough for your new joiner. The actual deploy involves checking three config files, running the migration, watching the logs, verifying the health check passes. Even narrated fast, that's 6–8 minutes. Loom hits the wall at 5:00, your narration cuts off mid-sentence, and the recording ends with the new joiner missing the most important step (the health check). You re-record, hit the cap again, upload the second half as a separate video, and your new joiner has to context-switch between two share links to follow the procedure.
A workshop intro where the host sets context for 6 minutes
You're hosting a 90-minute workshop and pre-recording the opening 15 minutes (intro, agenda, ground rules) so attendees can review before the live session. The opening is 6 minutes — not because you're slow, but because there are four pieces of context to lay down (the project background, the goal of today, the agenda, the ground rules). Loom caps at 5:00. You either cut a piece of context or you split into two videos and break the flow at the seam.
A B2B sales rep answering "how does your product handle SSO?"
A prospect asked how your product handles SSO configuration. The honest answer is a 9-minute screen walkthrough: open admin → auth settings → pick provider → map fields → test login → show the audit log. You can't narrate that in 5 minutes without sounding like an auctioneer, and the prospect is going to ask follow-ups anyway. Loom caps you. Pullsy lets you record the whole walkthrough as one continuous video with no edit points.
A teacher recording a 14-minute lesson
You're recording tomorrow's algebra lesson for students who will be out. The lesson opens with a 3-minute review of last night's homework, moves into the new material for 8 minutes, and closes with a 3-minute preview of what's next. 14 minutes. Loom's 5-minute cap means three separate videos with hard cuts between them, which students will absolutely not watch in order. Pullsy records the whole 14-minute lesson as one continuous file, and the auto-chapters Pullsy generates let students jump to the section they need.
Recording length and viewer experience: Loom vs Pullsy.
| Feature | Loom Free | Loom Business | Pullsy Free |
|---|---|---|---|
| Max length per recording | 5 minutes | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Videos on free tier | 25 lifetime cap | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Watermark | Yes | No | No, ever |
| Auto-chapters so viewers can skip | No | Business + AI only | Yes — free, generated automatically |
| Viewers can search inside the transcript | No | Business + AI only | Yes — free |
| Viewers can ask the video a question | No | No | Yes — free, clickable timestamps |
| Local export of the recording | No | Yes | Yes — browser has the file directly |
| Cost to unlock unlimited length | N/A (free tier is 5 min) | ~$18/user/mo (Business) | Free |
Unlimited length, free.
Pullsy has no length cap on any tier. Record a 30-second bug report or a 90-minute lecture — same flow, same share link. The recording is a normal video file your browser produces; you can save it locally, edit it in any video editor, or just share the link and let viewers stream it.
Auto-summary + chapters, so long videos are skippable.
Long videos are only useful if viewers can find what they need. Pullsy auto-generates a written summary, a chapter list (by topic transition), and a searchable transcript for every recording. A 14-minute lesson gets five chapters; a viewer types "the formula" and the player jumps to that moment. Loom gates the same features behind Business + AI (~$20–24/user/mo).
Ask-this-video — so long videos are answerable.
For really long recordings, even chapters aren\'t enough — viewers have questions the recorder didn\'t anticipate. Pullsy\'s Ask-this-video panel lets viewers type "what was that command at 12:30?" and get a timestamped answer pulled from the transcript. Loom has no equivalent.
Frequently asked questions
Does Pullsy really have no time cap?
Correct. There is no length limit on Pullsy recordings, free included. You can record a 90-second bug report, a 14-minute product demo, or a 2-hour workshop — same flow. The recording is a normal video file with the resolution your screen-capture session produced. Files get large with very long recordings; modern browsers handle them fine, but if you're going past 30 minutes, close other tabs first.
What if the recording is an hour long? Does the file get huge?
A one-hour recording at typical screen-capture resolution produces a file in the 200–500 MB range depending on motion (a slide deck compresses smaller than a video game capture). Pullsy uses the browser's built-in codecs, which are efficient. You can stop and trim in any video editor after, or just upload the whole file to the share page — viewers stream it, they don't download it.
Can viewers seek through long Pullsy videos easily?
Yes. Pullsy generates chapter markers automatically (by detecting topic transitions in the transcript), so viewers can skip to the part they need. There's also a full-text search across the transcript — type "the formula on slide 14" and the player jumps to that moment. Long videos don't have to be a wall to scrub through.
Why does Loom enforce a 5-minute limit on the free tier?
It's a funnel. 5 minutes is enough to demonstrate the product but not enough to record a real walkthrough — the moment you actually need a longer recording, you're pushed toward Loom Business (~$18/user/mo). Pullsy's model is different: free is the product, paid tiers add Pro (custom domain, branding) and Team (workspace, API) rather than unlocking the basics.
What about breaking a long Loom into chunks?
That works for some workflows (a 14-minute lesson split into 3 Looms), but most viewers don't watch Looms in order. They click the link, get the first 5 minutes, then bounce because the next chunk is a separate share link they have to find. One continuous video gets more completions than three chunks at the same total length.
Is Pullsy affiliated with Loom?
No. Loom is a trademark of Atlassian. Pullsy is an independent product not affiliated with or endorsed by Loom. Plan details above are dated to July 2026 from Loom's public pricing pages.
Record the whole thing — not the first 5 minutes.
No install, no length cap, no watermark. Free.
Loom is a trademark of Atlassian. Pullsy is not affiliated with or endorsed by Loom. Loom plan details reflect Loom's public pricing pages as of July 2026.